'I can try.' Alban looked up to find Cole watching them from the freezer section, arms folded across his chest. 'I think the rest of it should wait a while. Your friend won’t like it if I don’t…'
'Play along?' There was a note of pain in Margrit’s voice and Alban frowned, guessing at its source.
'I would have said ‘participate.’ This is your life, Margrit, not a game.'
'But you can play at being human. I can’t even pretend to be one of you.' Margrit finally stepped through the door and followed Cole to the ice cream.
Not until she saw Alban standing among her friends had it really struck Margrit how badly he might fit into her world. Awkward as it was, she fit into his better. At least the Old Races knew what she was. There was no pretense, no playing a role to make herself part of a society she hadn’t been born to. No matter what Alban did in the human world, he was faced with either a lie or a truth so overwhelming it was almost inconceivable.
'Earth to Margrit. Hello, Grit? Are you that drunk?'
'What?' Margrit looked up with a blink, her thoughts interrupted by Cameron’s good-natured teasing. 'That sleepy, maybe. What’d I miss?' They’d retired to the apartment after buying four individual pints of ice cream, then partitioned the different flavors into bowls and handed them around. Alban had eaten his with the incredulous expression of a child who’d never tasted the sweet stuff before, while Cameron kept an easy conversation going despite Cole’s taciturn responses and Margrit’s tendency to fall silent as she watched the human-form gargoyle.
'An argument over whether pralines or chocolate made the superior ice cream. It’s the kind of thing I’d think you’d have an opinion on.'
'Job training permits me to have an opinion on everything.' Margrit put her empty bowl aside and rubbed her hands over her face, the chill waking her up. 'Pralines in chocolate with a caramel swirl would be most superior of all. Does anybody make that?'
'I do,' Cole said from the couch. He hadn’t moved since finishing his ice cream, except to drape an elbow over his eyes as he sprawled in the cushions. 'Or I could. For a price.'
'A place on Park Avenue?'
'I’m not greedy. I’d settle for…' He yawned, then flapped his hand. 'Something less showy.'
Cameron laughed. 'Alban’s the only one awake anymore. I guess night shift has its advantages. You’re really that allergic to sunlight? What about cloudy days? It must suck, never hanging out on a beach at noon.'
'I wouldn’t know,' Alban said so solemnly it made Margrit smile. 'I don’t miss what I’ve never had. And… yes,' he added carefully. 'My reaction to sunlight is fairly extraordinary. Clouds, unfortunately, don’t block the reaction.'
'Probably caused by UV rays.' Cole waved a hand as if trying to encompass information with it. 'I thought there were medical treatments for that kind of problem these days. Take a pill, solve all your problems.'
Margrit met Alban’s gaze, both of them bemused at the idea. 'Imagine if it were that simple,' he said.
Margrit huffed. 'I can’t. That would be too weird. Like vampires surviving on iron supplements.' She eyed Alban, who shook his head, then set his empty bowl aside.
'Speaking of morning, I should go.'
'I’ll walk you out.' Margrit got to her feet as Alban did. Cole remained on the couch, yawning until his jaw cracked, but Cameron stood, as well.
'It was nice to meet you, Alban. Maybe sometime we can get Margrit’s new boss to send a car with really tinted windows around for you, and you can come to dinner.'
'We’ll have to make it a European sort of meal,' Alban said apologetically. 'Beginning late and ending even later. I simply don’t go out in the daytime.'
'We could come in,' Cam volunteered, then caught Margrit’s expression and subsided. 'Well, I’m glad we met you, anyway, and that you’re not a murderer.'
Margrit put a hand over her face as Cole roused himself enough to stare at Cameron. 'Even I’ve been more tactful than that, Cam.'
'Not much,' she muttered, then smiled brightly. 'G’night, Alban. G’night, Grit. You can stay up all night,' she said to Cole. 'I’m going to bed.'
'I already stayed up all night. It’s way past all night and seriously into all morning.' He dragged himself off the couch to follow Cameron out of the living room.
Margrit swayed in the abrupt silence, as if Cam’s chatter had kept her grounded. Alban murured, 'That went better than I feared.'
'Yeah. Yeah, I guess it did.' She held out her hand. 'Come on, let’s get you out of here. Even if sunrise isn’t for another two hours.'
'Agreed.' He slipped his hand around hers, enveloping her fingers, and she led him from the apartment, automatically choosing to climb rather than descend the stairs. Only on the rooftop did she release his hand and step back, wrapping her arms around herself as she searched for the right words to say.
Alban took away the need, shifting to his gargoyle form as he spoke. 'Malik threatened you in daylight hours, Margrit. It’s a gargoyle’s weakness, that we can’t defend what we-' He caught his breath and an anticipatory chill shot through Margrit, thoroughly wakening her. 'What we care for,' he said after a moment, much more softly. 'Everything we hold dear is vulnerable during the day.'
Disappointment at what he hadn’t said cut through her. Margrit dropped her gaze to the rooftop beneath her feet, swallowing against a tight throat. 'Well, I can arm myself against him, but why go after me now?'
'The selkies have named you as the instigator of their revolution, and djinn and selkie are ancient enemies. You’ve upset our whole world, our balance. That’s reason enough, even if he didn’t already dislike you.'
'The feeling’s mutual,' Margrit said beneath her breath. 'I don’t want to put on airs, but if Malik goes after me now that I’m working for Eliseo, isn’t that just slow suicide? He’s still furious over Vanessa’s death. If I wind up dead, too….'
'It’s not a risk I would take,' Alban admitted. 'Our laws may demand exile for killing each other, but if Eliseo were to lose two assistants to Janx’s people within half a year, he may not care about the rules.'
Cold sharper than the spring night shivered through Margrit. 'You don’t think this is all Janx’s idea, do you?'
'No.' The immediacy of Alban’s response did more to reassure her than she’d thought possible. 'Janx would consider killing you to be shortsighted. Murdering Vanessa was a blow in an eternal game, but you’re still too finely balanced between the two of them.'
'Am I? Even if I’m working for Eliseo?'
'You are.' Alban’s voice softened. 'If for no other reason than you’ve involved me in their standoff, whether you intended to or not, and that’s something they’ve both wanted for a long time. Without you, they have no control over me.'
'That sounds like a good reason for you to stay away.'
'It is, but my intentions to do so are thwarted at every turn. Perhaps it’s past time I learned from that.'
'It is,' Margrit echoed firmly. 'Alban, hear me out, okay? My life has seemed like a washed-out watercolor for the last three months. I didn’t even notice it until you fell out of the sky again a few nights ago. It all looks fine until somebody throws a splash of real color onto the page, and then everything else looks pale and dull.'
'I thought that was what sent you running through the park at night. I thought that was where you drew your colors from.' Alban sounded bemused and sad, any flattery taken from Margrit’s comment lost beneath deeper emotion.
She stepped back, gazing up at the gargoyle in astonishment. It took effort to whisper, 'Nobody understands that,' through a throat gone tight with longing.
Alban’s heavy eyebrows drew down. 'Isn’t it self-evident? It’s a dangerous behavior. Why would you do it if not to throw paint on the canvas, to use your words? It’s why I began watching you all those years ago, before any of this.' He made a brief circle with one hand, encompassing the two of them. 'Before I knew anything about your life, I knew that you ran in the park at night to challenge the order of the world you lived in.'
A fluting laugh escaped Margrit. 'You should have said hello years ago. Nobody gets it, Alban. Not my parents, not my housemates, certainly not Tony. They just see me being stupid. I can’t explain that I need to-' Her voice broke and she fluttered her hands, tiny gestures of desire as much for the right word as a burgeoning impulse to catch Alban and his understanding and never let them go. 'To fly,' she finally finished, feeling the explanation was wholly inadequate.
